Keep in mind you're posting this to a site where most people, or at least the most vocal people, don't think the arts and letters have much value and think that pure technocracy would be a fine thing.
I won't argue further, but it's neither my vision of most people here, nor the vision I have of most vocal people here. And I really hope I'm not mistaken. :)
You know, you're right. I'm too sensitive on this point. Also, I see I did that annoying thing where someone makes an untrue generalization about HN and inadvertently (or advertently, as the case may be) changes the subject. I'm going to edit that out.
I'm not sure of the precise representation on HN, but I would say that statement is consistent with the modal line of thought in my engineering school.
At my engineering school, I took a whole quarter long class on Joyce, the vast bulk of which was focused on Ulysses. We did a chapter a week as I recall, with the last week focused on the first page of Finnegan's wake. Well, the first couple paragraphs, really.
So there's some of us out there, even in the engineering schools.
I won't argue further, but it's neither my vision of most people here, nor the vision I have of most vocal people here. And I really hope I'm not mistaken. :)